


All of It Singing

by waspabi



Series: i'll see you with your laughter lines [1]
Category: One Direction (Band), Radio 1 RPF
Genre: Established Relationship, Future Fic, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 19:13:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1097603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waspabi/pseuds/waspabi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry’s phone buzzes and he jolts, nearly dropping the bananas he’s been dumping into pack lunches. It’s Niall — <em>u should frame these pap shots and use em 4 christmas cards</em> — and a snap of what looks like the Daily Mail.</p>
<p>Harry snorts and enlarges the attachment. MODERN FAMILY?: HARRY STYLES LUNCHES AL FRESCO WITH KIDS, HUBBY AND EX-WIFE. It’s from this past weekend, a sunny day in Regent’s Park. Ellie and Nick are cackling over the picnic basket, Roscoe perched in Nick’s lap smearing cheese all over his face as Harry and Maisie set up for bocce. Their weird little family. </p>
<p>Or, the first time Harry's daughter calls Nick daddy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All of It Singing

**Author's Note:**

> From a tumblr prompt that grew very long, shamelessly sentimental legs, like a particularly emotive giraffe. 
> 
> Thanks primarily to Catie who was a wonderful cheerleader for this verse, and also to Kelly and Serena who were enthusiastic readers/helpers. Several other people were also lovely but I'm afraid I will forget everyone, so just know that I appreciate you very, very much.

Harry’s phone buzzes and he jolts, nearly dropping the bananas he’s been dumping into pack lunches. It’s Niall — _u should frame these pap shots and use em 4 christmas cards_ — and a snap of what looks like the Daily Mail.

Harry snorts and enlarges the attachment. MODERN FAMILY?: HARRY STYLES LUNCHES AL FRESCO WITH KIDS, HUBBY AND EX-WIFE. It’s from this past weekend, a sunny day in Regent’s Park. Ellie and Nick are cackling over the picnic basket, Roscoe perched in Nick’s lap smearing cheese all over his face as Harry and Maisie set up for bocce. Their weird little family. 

His subsequent eye-roll is unavoidable. It’s been a decade since he and Ellie split and with joint custody of Maisie, they see each other every week without fail. Despite everything, they’ve managed to become close friends and _yet every single time_ they take the kids out together it’s a headline. Harry wouldn’t mind so much except Maisie is old enough to notice, these days. Thirteen-year-olds aren’t exactly unaware of celebrity gossip. 

Roscoe, at five, is not bothered, far too busy sticking a hold up on his father with a banana. “Got you,” he says, little and fierce with his chubby arms tense. 

Nick puts his hands up immediately. “Oh _no_ ,” he says, “How will I ever steal the crown jewels now?” 

“You _won’t_!” Roscoe looks intensely satisfied, “ _I’ve saved them_. I’m _double-o seven._ ” 

“Double Rosc-o seven?” suggests Harry, wrapping Maisie’s sandwich in paper. 

“There is no way I’ll be able to crime now,” Nick says solemnly. “Cue the swelling pipes, Adele! I’m finished. My life of villainy has been _ruined._ ”

“Yeah,” says Roscoe, beaming. “Ruined.”

“ _Daaaaaaad_.” Maisie thunders down the stairs in her school uniform with her bag half-open and spilling papers everywhere. “Where’s my French book? _Ugh,_ it’s _nowhere_ , Madame Watkins is going to _kill me_.” 

“Uh,” says Harry, looking fruitlessly around the kitchen. “What does it look like?” 

Maisie fixes him with a deeply unimpressed stare. “It’s a French textbook. It’s a textbook that says French things on the front.” 

“Got it,” Nick says, and moves aside a stack of papers on the table to reveal _Salut!_. Roscoe pokes Nick in the back with the banana gun, _daddy-daddy-daddy-daddy_ , unimpressed by his sister’s conundrum. 

“Thanks, Grimmy,” says Maisie, wedging it into her exploding bag. “Ugh, this thing is _so heavy_.” 

“I’ve heard not carrying around everything you own in the world could help,” Nick says wisely. He kneels down to let Roscoe clamber onto him, twining his chubby arms around Nick’s neck. “Although we could just get you _two_ bags, and then you could have your cool bag and your lame bag, and one could be to shove in your desk and the other you can use during the day.” 

“Dad?” Maisie grins and raises her eyebrows at Harry. “I think that makes _perfect_ sense.” 

“You’ve only got two arms, Maize. Once you go full octopus we can talk.” Harry hands Maisie her pack lunch over the island, bag emblazoned on the front with a big flower. Sometimes Harry gets worried that Maisie’s going to start thinking his lunch-bag decorations are lame. She seems so grown-up sometimes, with her serious little face. He feels like no time at all has passed since Maisie was a grubby three-year-old who liked nothing more than when Nick would act out Winnie the Poo for her before bed and Harry would play Eeyore. 

Nick shifts Roscoe, examining his bare feet with cartoon disgust. “Eugh, can’t go to school with _these_ , peanut. Hey, Maize, mind getting this special agent suited up for school?” 

Maisie reaches up for her brother and Harry smiles absently as she totes him up the stairs, nodding seriously as he chatters on about his very important MI5 business. 

“It is the saddest story of my life that our son is a bloody Bond fan,” sighs Nick, coming up behind him to hook his chin over Harry’s shoulder. “Fucking Fincham. I never should have let him and Lizzie babysit.” 

Harry rolls his eyes, patting Nick’s cheek. “Very sad story, babe. Oh, Ellie rung earlier, says she’s going to get May from school, so we don’t have to take her later.” 

“Mmkay." Nick turns his attention to the side of Harry’s neck. “Let’s not tell Ro until this afternoon. Don’t want him losing it for poor Miss Sue.” 

After the divorce, the weeks Maisie stayed with her mum were awful, weird and empty, just Harry rattling around in his big house. Now it’s okay, normal, him and Nick and Roscoe and the laundry and the washing up, although Roscoe tends to throw a temper tantrum when his sister has to leave. Harry’s glad Ellie decided to buy in North London as well; it makes the whole arrangement infinitely easier. 

Nick turns Harry around gently so that his back is to the island at the centre of the kitchen. Harry grins up at his careworn face, just the same warm-eyed crinkle Nick’s trained at Harry for about the last twenty years of their lives. Harry tilts his face up to kiss him properly, steadying Nick’s cheek in one hand. 

“Oh my _god,”_ Maisie says, mortification ringing out in every vowel. “ _Get a room_.” 

“Dads have a room, Maisie,” Roscoe says, reasonably. “It’s upstairs.” 

“Ugh, _no_ , I meant like —” Harry turns around, trying not to laugh at the utter disapproval written over Maisie’s furrowed eyebrows. “Ugh, _whatever_.” 

“You get two rooms. One at Ellie’s house. One here. I only have one room.” Roscoe frowns up at Maisie, weighing this out. 

Nick and Harry exchange a glance. They must move quickly, lest Roscoe get into his head that in order for things to be fair, he needs the upstairs office, or perhaps the garden, along with his bedroom. 

“School time!” Nick claps his hands together. “Very exciting, lots of pens and people milling about and boring bits in between, let’s go!” 

Harry mouths _thank you_ at him, getting Roscoe’s school bag and making sure both the kids are bundled up for the autumn chill. Nick is doing an odd little dance around them, a tuneless chant about pencils and books as he ushers them out the door. Normally Harry does the school run, but Nick’s got a meeting in that direction and Harry’s grateful for the chance at a morning not spent in the car. 

“Grimmy,” Maisie is saying on her way out to the leafy street. “I keep saying I’m old enough to get to school on my own, why can’t I—”

Harry shuts the door to blissful, blessed quiet. He gets an entire minute and a half of silence before his phone starts to ring, landline and mobile at once. He snorts, fishing his phone from his pocket. It’s his manager, and he has twelve unread texts and a missed call. 

“Hi, Annie,” Harry says, going to put the breakfast dishes away. “No, I’m not busy.” 

*

As expected, Roscoe throws an epic tantrum that night. Every Friday of his life, Maisie has either come home from or left for Ellie’s, but apparently Roscoe has the memory of a goldfish. He feels the pain fresh each time, and likes to make his protest known. When Nick and Harry finally get him to bed they’ve hit the point where they’re so exhausted and frustrated that _everything_ has become hilarious. They stumble down the stairs, giggling as Harry nearly goes flying off the middle step and Nick has to catch his arm. A split second later, Nick’s foot slips and it’s Harry’s turn to pull him up, hysterically laughing so much he’s afraid he might wee himself. 

“I think you two are part hyena,” Aimee notes, dumping her massive ring of keys on the table by the front door. “But a sort of special needs hyena.” 

“No comment,” Nick says, still breathless. “Hiya, Aims, y’alright?” 

“Peachy.” Aimee kisses Harry’s cheek and Nick’s mouth and leads them into their own living room, flinging her fur coat over the turquoise armchair by the fireplace before sitting. “Ian’s home with the little monster tonight, thank _god_.” 

“Bless that little Chaloner. Both little Chaloners. One little Chaloner and one little Phillips-Chaloner. I’m going to have a nightcap,” Nick says brightly. “You want?” 

Harry nods weakly, collapsing onto the sofa with a sigh. “Please.” 

“Make mine a double,” Aimee says, digging through her big black handbag. 

Nick retreats, whistling an old Drake tune that filters softly through the house as he clatters about in the kitchen. 

Aimee flicks on the telly and scrolls through, stopping as familiar music jolts through the room, a contemporary remix of the old theme. _X-Factor_ , proclaims the disembodied presenter. X-Factor went off air a little after Maisie was born and it’s back now, raking in stellar ratings and making Harry feel about a thousand years old.

Aimee purses her lips. “I hate the new titles. The old ones were at least _aware_ they were tacky. These have no fucking clue.” 

“I’ll pass that along,” snorts Harry. 

“And tell Liam to have whoever’s doing his hair to go easy on the pomade. It’s starting to look a bit Ken doll.” 

Harry laughs, watching Liam earnestly advise a pink-haired teenager to work on his breath control. Liam is nodding rather vigorously and, indeed, his coif has not moved an inch. “It is a little teflon,” he allows, fondly. 

“So — two things.” Aimee knocks Harry’s leg with the tip of her toe, stretching her leg so far she’s half out of the chair. “Number one, I wanted to make sure you lot were in for Henry’s dinner thing. I know he says he’s not gunning for Designer of the Year but he fucking well is, and raising the profile a little at this point is a good move.” 

“All of us?” Harry winces, shifts. “One of us, maybe. You know we don’t like to take the kids to the big things. It’s too much for a five-year-old.” 

“It’ll be small.” Aimee’s got that set of her chin that usually means she’s plotting world domination for all of her friends, the ghost of her PR past lighting her eyes under the twin black swoops of liner. “Just the usuals, a few other fashion people and somebody from the board. You’ll know everyone; it’ll be casual but it’s a good move.” 

“I’ll check with Nick,” Harry allows. “But yeah, probably. You know we’ll do whatever to help out.” 

“Great.” Aimee ducks her head, digging into her bag. “Yeah, also, didn’t know if anyone had mentioned, but the Sun’s back on you guys. Apparently there’s trouble in paradise.” She chucks a mag at Harry, colourful pages fluttering towards him like a particularly aggressive two-dimensional parrot. Harry bats his arms at the assault, only _just_ managing to save his skin from death by paper-cut. 

ROMANCE REKINDLED? HARRY STYLES ARRIVES AT EX-WIFE ELLIE ROTH’S HOUSE AFTER DARK — WITH AN OVERNIGHT BAG. 

Harry rolls his eyes nearly hard enough to release his eyeballs from their sockets to roll unencumbered through his skull like a gory pinball game. He scans the article: a photograph of him and Maisie around the corner from Ellie’s house, Harry carrying Maisie’s floral weekender as she trails behind him alongside a few sensationalised pull quotes — _‘Grimmy is worried,’ says an insider. ‘Ellie and Harry have always remained close and they’re only getting closer’_ — and fights the impulse to chuck it out the window. “Rubbish,” he says, tossing it to the side. “Fucking ridiculous, as always.” 

“Obviously,” Aimee says, shrugging. “We all know that. Just saying — Otto’s been hearing a few things in school, and if he is then Maisie’s getting it, too.” 

“What’s Maisie getting?” Nick asks, balancing a tray of hot toddies. He sets them on the coffee table carefully. “Aimes, they’re all doubles. Couldn’t be bothered to keep track of it.” 

“Tabloid bollocks.” Harry reaches for a mug and nearly burns his hand, hissing. 

Nick catches his fingers and blows on them, grinning up through his eyelashes. “Careful, love. That hand’s our livelihood. Insured for ten million pounds, I’d bet.” 

“Could finally redo the spare room,” Harry says, dreamily. 

“I should snap this touching scene and send it in to Heat,” grumbles Aimee, gingerly sipping at her drink. “Redo _our_ spare room.” 

Nick chucks a throw pillow at Aimee, and then picks up the discarded magazine. “This the tabloid bollocks?” 

“Eau de merde.” Aimee arches a perfect eyebrow over the rim of her mug. “Combining hints of fecal matter from the entire animal kingdom.” 

Nick pages through the article, snorting. “You know, normally these arseholes are regular-level crap but really, I think they’ve outdone themselves. This is some epic fly-ridden pile of shit, right here.” He turns the page, stopping on a big picture of Harry and Maisie walking in front of a wrought iron gate, the flash blowing both of their skin white. “Poor thing,” Nick says, wincing. 

Harry hooks his chin over Nick’s shoulder. The pictures had started about a street away from Ellie’s, two guys in black coats tracking them for ten glaring minutes. Maisie had gone stone faced and doubled her speed. In the photos she’s partially obscured by Harry’s jacket but half of her features are lit up, white and tense. She looks miserable. 

There is no part of Harry that doesn’t want to call the tabloid and demand a retraction and an apology, but he remembers that the guy had stayed ten feet away and didn’t wait outside the house for more than a half hour and there aren’t much by way of reasonable grounds. Still, ‘my kid looks sad’ seems like more than enough grounds to him. 

“Just wanted to let you know, in case Maize hasn’t been sharing and caring.” Aimee purses her lips. “Not really the age for that, huh?” 

“No,” Harry says, frowning at the page. 

“Okay, enough of that,” Nick says, plucking the magazine from where Harry had pulled it into his lap. He folds it up and tucks it away, patting at Harry’s knee. “It’s sacred X-Factor time. Got to show Liam your utmost respect.” 

On the big screen Liam beams, teeth gleaming in the cool studio lights. Harry sighs, leaning into Nick’s warmth and watches a redheaded boy do a cover of an old One Direction song — ballsy, given the judges — and does his best to put the photos out of his mind. 

*

The sacred Monday evening of Maisie’s Year 8 musical theatre performance has been encircled no less than four times on the packed whiteboard calendar in the kitchen, enthusiastic red lines intersecting ‘Roscoe dentist’ and ‘Henry dinner’. Harry has had no less than sixteen texts from his demanding daughter requesting that he (a) not sit in the front row, (b) not give a standing ovation _unless_ _everyone is giving a standing ovation_ and (c) not bring all of One Direction because it ‘distracts everyone’s mums’. 

Harry wishes that he had maybe received that text a little earlier in the day.  

“I’m pretty sure most of the other year eights won’t have an entourage this big,” Harry muses, raising an eyebrow at the colourful crowd in the living room that, yes, includes the other members of One Direction. 

“She’s a popular girl,” Nick says. He brushes a bit of lint from Harry’s jumper sleeve. “We all want to see her musical debut.” 

“C’mon you bastards, we’re going to be late!” Pixie pokes her head in from the corridor, big eyes wide. “If we’re late we’ll make a scene and she’ll _never forgive you_. Never. Ever.” 

“Trust her, love.” Nick encircles Harry’s waist with one arm, tugging him towards the door and the parade of cars waiting. 

Brook House Senior School sits unobtrusively on a leafy, residential street, a big brick building whose old fashioned exterior belies the state-of-the-art facilities within. It’s one of the independent schools the papers call a ‘soft option,’ because they discourage academic competition and spend a lot of time painting their feelings, which was exactly the atmosphere Harry had wanted. 

The Styles-Grimshaw party takes up an entire two rows in the auditorium, Roscoe reserving both his own seat next to Louis and a secondary position further down the row on Nick’s lap. With Ellie, her husband Jack and sister Laura they push into a third. Harry makes sure to sit spaced from the boys, make it a little harder to draw the focus of the mums and the ire of his daughter. Most of the parents at Maisie’s school have become desensitised to Harry’s presence but apparently you get Zayn Malik’s cheekbones and Liam Payne’s biceps into one room and a distinct buzz begins. Roscoe announces that he’d rather sit with Louis and pushes out of Nick’s lap, prompting a hysterical giggle fit in which Nick leans over Niall to tell Ian it reminds him of the olden days. 

Aimee smacks Nick’s quiff so it wobbles dangerously, a leaning tower — tow-hair? — of Pisa. “Otto did the cover design,” she half shouts down the row to Harry, waving the programme at him. 

Harry flips through his copy. Otto’s dramatic ink design of a man in a fedora and a woman with a bob graces the front, proclaiming in swirling letters that Brook House Senior School presents _Bugsy Malone_ , artwork by Otto Phillips-Chaloner. “It’s really good,” Harry half-shouts back. 

“I know!” Aimee hollers, and then turns to show the programme to somebody else. 

Ellie winds round in her seat to stick her tongue out at Harry. “Loud,” she says, teasing. 

Harry sticks his tongue out back, because they are very mature adults. “Hi,” he says, over the chatter of the audience settling. “Did you see her before? Is she nervous?” 

Ellie tilts her mouth diagonally. “Bloody bricking it.” 

They make commiserating faces at each other until Nick turns back from where he’d been chatting with Ian to poke Harry’s dimple. 

“Hmm?” Nick asks, waggling his eyebrows obnoxiously as he drives his finger deeper into Harry’s face. 

Before Harry can respond the auditorium lights dim, the raucous tangles of conversation in the crowd falling to a hushed buzz. Ellie turns toward the stage so only her ponytail is visible, swinging over the rung of the chair in front. Harry leans close to Nick’s ear to whisper, “Maisie’s nervous.” 

Nick’s eyebrows do a sad waggle and he grips Harry’s hand in his as the curtains open with a flourish of violins. 

It’s a typical Year 8 sort of performance of Bugsy Malone: attempted accents which dip periodically round the English speaking world from America to Australia without warning and often in the same sentence, enthusiastic lighting and the blustering self-conscious acting of a popular pubescent boy in the lead role, but everybody looks thrilled to be onstage. 

Maisie, in Harry’s fully impartial opinion, is _a revelation_. He honestly can’t help but whoop at the end of every solo, his vocal training sending the cheer to every corner of the auditorium. She’s just _brilliant_. At the end, Harry leaps to his feet, applauding furiously. The standing ovation spreads out like a ripple from his seat, Nick a half beat behind him and the rest of the crowd to follow. 

“You are okay!” roars Roscoe on the other end of the row, from his position on Louis’s hip. 

“That was so brilliant,” Harry tells Nick, still applauding vigorously. “She’s so great, isn’t she? She’s honestly so good!” 

“Five stars,” Nick says, beaming. “That girl’s a natural, innit?” 

Down the row, Louis leans around Roscoe’s head to waggle his eyebrows at Harry, mouthing _Dame Judy Dench_. Harry snorts and chucks the programme at him. It makes it three seats down and lands half on Pixie’s lap, ghosting to an ineffectual stop. Harry goes and retrieves it immediately, thinking about having it framed along with a photo from the performance. They could hang it in the front hall, maybe, or the conservatory. 

Maisie emerges from backstage twenty minutes later in half-removed stage makeup, flushed in her school hoodie. “Oh my _god_ , Dad,” she says, shielding her face from both sides. “I _told_ you not to lead the standing ovation.” 

Harry rolls his eyes and picks her up in a rib-squeezing hug. “You were just so _good_ ,” he says, swinging her around a bit until she’s shrieking, although it is possibly with embarrassment. She’s laughing as he sets her back down, anyway. 

“Wow, you brought everyone, huh?” Maisie eyes the crowd, from Aimee and Ian to Pixie chatting to Lou Teasdale, down to Louis, still carrying Roscoe with one arm. Harry refrains from mentioning that he’d actually invited about ten more people who had prior commitments and couldn’t attend. 

“Couldn’t help your star power,” Nick says, presenting Maisie with a bouquet of dark red roses. “ _Marvellous_ debut, Miss Styles!” 

Maisie barely gets a chance to take the gift and say thank you before she’s buried under a crush of teenaged girl, shrieking and giggling. 

“Oh my _god_ ,” she says. “Maisie that was _so awesome_ , right?” 

“Yeah,” laughs Maisie, and then turns to face Nick and Harry, arm slung around her friend. “Um, this is my friend Amelia. Amelia, this is my dad and, uh.” Her eyes dart to Nick, briefly. “My, like… Stepdad. Grimmy.” 

“Dude, I can read,” Amelia says, rolling her eyes with such expertise Harry is vaguely impressed. “Nick Grimshaw and Harry Styles, it’s not exactly a secret.” She puts out a hand to shake, terribly grown up, and as soon as Harry is about to take it the two girls are inundated by a crush of classmates, chattering excitedly and stealing roses from Maisie’s bouquet to tuck in their hair. 

Harry and Nick exchange a look. Harry tries not to laugh openly. They retreat to the parents' side of the space, where clusters of adults are talking about adult things, probably, mortgages and garden maintenance and GCSE prospects and doing their best not to embarrass their offspring. 

“— and then I spilled Jaeger all over Benjamin Waxman’s Alexander Wang,” Pixie is telling Lou, snorting into her glass of punch. “So we just swapped clothes and he did the rest of the party in my silver sheath Topshop dress.” 

So, maybe not _entirely_ adult things. 

Nick drapes himself over Pixie’s shoulders and Lou kisses Harry’s cheek, still a little giggly from Pixie’s story. “Hiya, love. Your girl’s not bad, is she?” 

Harry flushes with pride and attempts not to do, like, an international press release in which he talks about how Maisie’s the next Meryl Streep, or something, even though he’d actually like to write that on a flashing billboard in Times Square or possibly have it written in sky-cursive over all of London. “Isn’t she incredible? I mean, her comic timing is perfect, and her voice is so good, and she’s _so_ gorgeous, isn’t she? I thought that one bit she did after the first act was so funny, don’t you think?” 

“Uh-huh,” laughs Lou, looping her arm through Harry’s. “Yeah, Haz, she’s on her way to a Tony for sure.” 

“ _I_ think so,” Harry says, pouting a little because he can’t resist it, and also he’s absolutely right in his assessment. “Whatever, _Louise_.”

After a half hour of mingling around the punch bowl Roscoe has grown cross and tearful, deposited into Harry’s arms where he’s squirming, fingers bunched up in Harry’s jumper as he whines into his neck. 

“You should get this one home,” Ellie says, tousling Roscoe’s long hair. “Cranky boy.” 

“He turns into a pumpkin at midnight,” Nick says wisely. “I’ll go and get our thespian for the fond farewell.” He retreats, dark head weaving through the clusters of parents and teenagers, stopping every ten seconds to kiss someone or other on the cheek because, as usual, Nick knows _everybody_. 

“Does Maize have everything for the week?” Harry asks, shifting Roscoe on his hip. “She left a few school things at ours but I didn’t know if she needed them.” 

Ellie shakes her head. “Fine, so far as I know. And Nick’s getting her after netball Wednesday? Thank him for me, by the way, I really couldn’t get out of the costume fitting.” 

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Harry says. Roscoe grumbles something indistinct about Star Wars, banging his little oxford-clad foot repeatedly against Harry’s ribs. Harry accepts the inevitability that he will bruise, remembering faintly a time when all his bruises were for fun reasons rather than having a five-year-old grumpily assault him after a school drama performance. “Oh — and there’s this, like, little tribute dinner thing for Henry on Saturday night, we were thinking of taking the kids, if that’s okay. You’re invited too, of course, but I figured —”

“Yeah, I’ve got a show,” agrees Ellie quickly, raising a hand in truce. “That’s fine, you can take her. It’s your week then, so.” 

“I found this!” Nick pushes Maisie through a startled blond couple by the shoulders. “Told her we had to get Cinderella home from the ball.” 

“Cinderfella,” Roscoe says sleepily, a dead weight against Harry’s chest. “I want glass shoes, Daddy. Pointy ones.” 

“Okay, honey,” Harry says, nearly laughing. He bends down to kiss Maisie’s cheek. “I’ll see you Friday, Maize. You were _amazing_ tonight; I’m so proud of you.” 

“I know, I know!” Maisie ducks out of Harry’s hug range, giggling and putting her hands up. “God, Dad, there are _people around_.” 

“I’m not ashamed of showing how proud I am of my girl,” Harry says, dignified. “I love you, and you are brilliant.” 

“You’re so weird.” Maisie hugs Nick quickly, and then folds her arms tight over her chest. “See you later. God.” 

“Okay, bye,” Harry says, and Maisie seems to take that as easy dismissal because she rockets across the auditorium to her friends. 

“She’s a real teenager,” Ellie sighs. 

Harry misses when Maisie was a chubby toddler whose favourite activities were trying to eat Harry’s necklaces and putting ice cream on her face. “Yeah,” he says, watching her go. 

He and Ellie kiss goodbye, quick and perfunctory and he does his usual awkward goodbye handshake with Jack before they herd their party towards the doors. 

“Bloody brilliant, Haz,” Niall says as they exit into the cool dark night, sodden leaves under their feet. “She’s fucking great.” 

Harry grins and nods, says his goodbyes and goes to load Roscoe into the Rover, fastening him into his car seat. 

“It’s nice,” Nick is saying to Pixie inside. “Acting and singing, together in literal harmony. Like a neat little combo of Haz and Ellie.” 

“And you,” Pixie says, punching Nick’s knee over the console. 

“Mm,” Nick says, noncommittally, starting the car. “How about that feather boa she had in that one scene, huh? _Very_ fetching. Very now.” 

“Glass lightsaber,” sighs Roscoe, his small face indented in a frown. Harry buckles his seatbelt next to him, frowning at the back of Nick and Pixie’s heads. “Daddy, lightsaber.” 

“What’s that, love?” Harry asks, peering down at him. 

“Not _you_ , Daddy. _Other_ Daddy.” 

“Ah,” Harry says dryly. In the reflection of the rearview mirror, Nick’s eyes are squinted in a laugh, cackling as he backs them out of their parking space. 

“Cold,” Pixie says, turning round to snort in Harry’s direction. “Regular Anna Wintour in training.” 

Roscoe’s face is darkening, ominous as a summer storm. He blows a wet raspberry through his lips, glaring indistinctly out the window. Harry exchanges a look with Nick, through the mirror. It might be a long ten minute drive. 

*

Those of the performance attendants who don’t have early mornings have already let themselves into the house, judging by the lights. Harry waves Nick and Pixie off to join them inside while Harry hangs back to wrangle a struggling Roscoe out of the car and through the door, using a patented technique of bargaining and relentless positivity that has a success rate of — well, about 46%, if he’s honest. Harry usually ends up just bodily carrying him. It’s much easier. The whole procedure takes a good fifteen exhausting minutes and Roscoe is sobbing by the time Harry gets the front door open. 

“Look at this diva,” Aimee coos when they step inside, holding out her arms towards him. “Were the demands in your rider not met? Was the water not Dasani?” 

“He’d requested chips and gravy,” Harry says dryly. “And they could only give him chips and cheese.” 

“Very northern of him. Like his dads. C’mon, gimme my godson. I’ll get his highness to bed.” 

Harry transfers Roscoe into Aimee’s arms, suppressing that brief guilty flash of complete and utter relief of not having to deal with his kid crying and protesting that he _hates_ brushing his teeth and he doesn’t _want to_ as Harry’s friends laugh over vodka and beer and talk about things that don’t involve either James Bond or dinosaurs downstairs. It makes him feel like a bad father, sometimes. He should savour all those moments with Roscoe when he’s still little, because when he’s Maisie’s age he’ll be mortified when Harry wants to hug him and sing him lullabies, and Harry’ll miss it desperately. “He’s on two songs now,” Harry tells Aimee, kissing Roscoe’s soft hair as a silent apology. 

“I’m sure he’ll love my tone-deaf rendition of Let’s Have a Kiki,” Aimee snorts. “Say g’night to your dad, kiddo.” 

“ _No_ ,” Roscoe says, petulant and regal like a small, angry king. “Want to stay up. Wanna —” He yawns, stuffing a fist into his mouth. “Wanna play. _Please_.” 

“Nope,” Harry says cheerfully, ignoring Roscoe’s protests as he smooths his rumpled hair. “Goodnight, Ro.” The first time round, with Maisie, Harry was much guiltier of giving in every time she whined and said _no, Daddy, wanna stay up with you_. It’s easier to say no now. Poor Maisie, being the test run. 

“Okay, we’ll find your other dad for kisses and then upstairs for some really exciting stories and songs, yeah?” Aimee shuffles Roscoe, readjusting his weight. “You go on in Haz, have a drink or something. You look terrible. Get some sleep sometime, will you?”

“Thank you,” Harry says earnestly, kissing Aimee’s cheek and ignoring the implied insult. “You’re the greatest. Love you both.” He kisses Roscoe’s forehead repeatedly, dodging his attempts to bat Harry away. 

“ _Go_ ,” laughs Aimee. “We’ll be fine.” 

Harry obeys dutifully, following the chatter of voices into the conservatory. Inevitably, Roscoe starts in on an epic whine about bedtimes behind him. 

*

Nearly everyone has gone home by half-eleven except Pixie, Ian and Aimee, all of them sprawled out around the living room with their drinks, some new mix of something or other playing softly in the background. Nick and Harry monopolise the sofa by the window, Harry snorting as Nick whines about it only being _half-eleven_ and everyone going home. ‘Like nanas,” Nick says. Harry thinks maybe mentioning that he’s quite knackered himself actually might have to wait. 

“Remember when we were cool?” Nick asks, tugging Harry until he’s fallen over Nick’s lap in a sort of half slump. Harry just manages to keep his drink from spilling over them both and also their recently reupholstered sofa, for which he deserves some sort of award, he’s pretty sure. “We were cool, at one point, I’m fairly sure. In the late noughties, perhaps. Back when computers didn’t run on air and dreams. In the days the Saturdays still roamed the earth. The golden days of Miley Cyrus. We were cool then.” 

“You were never cool,” Pixie says loftily. “I am always cool. _You_ have always been an idiot falling over in borrowed high heels and breaking your brittle limbs.” 

“In my defence, the heels weren’t borrowed.” Nick arranges Harry’s knees so they’re slung more evenly across his lap, looping an arm around Harry’s back and pulling him in. “I owned them, thank you very much.” 

“Still do,” Harry notes, kissing Nick’s jaw lightly. “Come in very handy, those, of a night in. With _those_ legs. We —” 

Ian tosses an olive at Harry that hits him square in the forehead. “That’s enough of that,” he says. “I’ve heard quite enough from you two on that particular subject, thank you.” 

“Jealous?” Nick runs his hand obviously up the seam of Harry’s jeans, leering outrageously at Ian. 

Ian snorts. “Oh, do shut up, Nicholas.” 

“Sometimes I wonder who’s the real old married couple here,” sighs Aimee, stirring her drink. 

Harry is _aware_ that Nick’s hand is three quarters up his thigh to taunt Ian, but his dick doesn’t quite make that distinction. Thirty-eight years old or not, it’s been about four days since he and Nick have had any conscious hours alone and the side of Nick’s neck is looking very edible. He leans it, licks over the salty skin below Nick’s earlobe, bites at the flesh a bit. 

Many aspects of Harry’s personality have improved as he’s matured. Self-control is… not really one of them. It’s fine. Harry has many other admirable qualities, he’s sure. 

Nick’s breath hitches a bit under Harry’s tongue and he grins into it, feeling all young and giggly all of a sudden. 

“Hungry, popstar?” Nick asks, amused, one hand twisting in Harry’s hair. “Gone cannibal?” 

“Mm-hm,” Harry agrees, turning his attention to Nick’s ear. 

Ian’s huff of exasperation does nothing to dim Harry’s enthusiasm for ear nibbling. 

“We should just carry on as normal and see if they fuck on the sofa,” says Pixie. 

“Wouldn’t be the first time.” Aimee snorts, chucking a balled-up napkin at Harry’s back. 

Harry ignores them. Nick’s ear is much more interesting. If he pulls the lobe lightly through his teeth Nick’s breath hitches in this way Harry never seems to grow tired of. 

“You lot don’t have young kids,” Nick says, as dignified as he can manage considering he’s pulling at Harry’s hair while Harry considers whether giving love-bites is a pastime really more suited mid-teens than late thirties. “ _Anymore_ , for the love of the Queen. Ian, don’t give me that face. Otto’s _fourteen_. Does not count. Able to pack his own lunch and cut his own food. Practically self-sustaining, really. A young child is _constant interruptions_.”

“I’ve got a young dog,” says Pixie serenely. “Same same.” 

Nick flings out a leg, attempting a kick, probably, but only managing a sort of swan flop in Pixie’s general direction. 

“Remember that time Nick thought having a dog was a good training for a baby?” Harry asks, raising his head from Nick’s skin long enough to make the inquiry. 

“It _was_!” Nick squawks. “I could treat Maisie exactly like Puppy. Perfect preparation. Sit, stay. Don’t eat that chocolate. Sorted.” 

Harry pokes Nick’s stomach. “Stick Lady Dogiva and Roscoe into the same pen, take them out for a walk?” 

“I can’t believe you actually named your dog Lady Dogiva.” Ian shakes his head, mournfully. “Poor creature.” 

“Blame Harold.” Nick squints down at Harry fondly, brushing some stray hair from his eyes. “Good policy, in general.” 

“Heeyyyy,” whines Harry, pouting. 

“ _Heyyyy_ ,” everyone choruses, in practised high-pitched unison. 

Harry settles back into the sofa, warmth spreading through his limbs from his drink or the company or Nick, he’s not sure. 

*

The kitchen is warm with late afternoon light and Harry stares at the coffee maker in front of him, taking a deep, centring breath. “It’s just you and me, buddy,” he tells it, firmly. “This is happening.” 

The coffee maker gives an aborted wheeze in response, a screechy sound like tinfoil crying. 

“Don’t give me that. I’m going to fix you. I _am_.” 

The coffee maker rattles. Harry stares it down. He’s got tools. He’s got _experience_. He’s got natural authority and stage presence. This coffee maker does not stand a chance. 

“Haz?” 

Harry bristles. “Not now! I’m having a showdown!” 

Nick keeps walking. “Haz, have you seen this?” 

Harry sighs heavily, turning away from his foe. Nick is across the kitchen, frowning down at his phone. “Probably not. What?” 

Nick passes Harry his phone. _HARRY STYLES’ TWEEN DAUGHTER IN LEWD T-SHIRT?_ Harry scrolls down, suppressing the urge to chuck Nick’s very nice phone into the sink and run the tap. There’s a photo of Maisie at some theatre thing with Ellie. She looks completely normal — blue t-shirt, jeans — until he scrolls to a blown up shot of the shirt. The pattern is made up of little written words. _Fuck off,_ they read. _H8 u._

“Fucking hell,” Harry sighs, passing Nick back his mobile. 

“Yeah, it’s completely stupid, obviously,” Nick says. He’s looking down at the photos, scrolling with an inscrutable look on his face. “But she’s going to hate it. Her expression’s all weird because she wasn’t sleeping too well; it barely even looks like her.” 

Harry hadn’t noticed, if he’s honest. He wonders if that makes him an inattentive dad. “Well, the t-shirt thing’s fucking nonsense and shouldn’t bloody be printed,” he says hotly. 

“No contest.” Nick frowns at his phone. “I don’t give a shit about that, honestly, but all she’s going to be able to see is that she’s got a spot on her cheek.” 

Harry used to get spots all the time all over and it hadn’t really bothered him that much, in photos. He wrinkles his nose to the side. “You’re going to go and get her from netball, right?” 

“Yeah.” Nick thumbs off his phone and deposits it over a stack of newspapers on the counter. “She’ll probably have seen, already, but I’ll see what I can do.” 

“I’ll… keep having my showdown with the coffee maker.” Harry scowls, scuffing the toe of his boot against the kitchen tile. “And possibly sue every tabloid in existence.” 

“She was at a public event, love,” Nick says gently. He backs Harry up against the wall, nuzzles Harry’s cheek with his nose. “Not much that can be done, there.” 

“ _Legally_.” Harry scrunches his nose. 

“If you want to go vigilante just let me know, so I can commission a flattering costume.” Nick kisses the corner of Harry’s mouth, soft. “Something that’ll set off that nice bum of yours. Don’t want that personal trainer’s work to be for naught, do we?” 

“I want something with sparkles,” Harry says, doing his darnedest to keep his lips from dragging upwards in a smile. It’s pretty useless; he’s smiling within seconds. “Nice pretty print.” 

“Noted.” Nick leans forward again, slots their lips together. They kiss for a long moment, mouths opening wide and breathy enough that Harry wonders where their kid is and hopes he is not actually in the room and getting scarred, visually. 

“Okay, I’ve actually got to run or I’m going to be disgustingly late,” Nick says, tearing himself reluctantly away from Harry and peering around for his mobile. “I’ll think of something to cheer her up. I’m a brilliant teen girl cheer-er upper.” 

Harry doesn’t doubt it. For somebody who used to entertain teen girls for a living, Harry feels remarkably outclassed in that department, honestly. 

*

The trouble, really, with working from home half the week when he’s not performing is that Harry gets _bored_ sometimes. It was one thing a year ago, before Roscoe started at infant school and Harry was on baby duty the entire day. Now the house is weirdly quiet, the radio humming from the kitchen just to create some auditory variety. Harry has spent so much of his life surrounded by constant chaos — and still does — that the prospect of sitting alone in the music room with a guitar, a vague idea of a tune and an entire uninterrupted hour in an empty house is a bit disconcerting. 

The sound of the doorbell ringing through the house is a relief, really, even if it is just a delivery guy with something off Amazon that Maisie _desperately needs,_ she _swears_. Harry sets his guitar aside and stumbles down the stairs, nearly tripping over Roscoe’s remote-control spaceship towards the end and needing to catch himself on the front hall table. He’s out of breath and huffing by the time he gets the door open, which makes Ellie only seem more put-together by contrast. It’s the blazer. Blazers always make people look put-together. 

“Hiya,” Harry says, grinning and stepping back to let her inside. “Sorry, didn’t know you were coming round! How are you, y'alright?” 

Ellie’s face is set, frustrated, and Harry’s stomach swoops reflexively. “Honestly, Haz, I’m not here just to hang out. I’ve — I can’t believe this, honestly, I expected better of both of you.” 

“I… what?” Gut twisting, Harry racks his brain for anything they’d done recently. There were the usual array of stupid tabloid articles, and Harry’d bought Maisie some boots that were probably too expensive because she’d loved them. Surely that couldn’t be too bad, right? 

Ellie sets her handbag on the table by the door, crossing her arms over her blazer-ed torso as she turns back to Harry. “Maisie told me that Grim is getting her into Glastonbury this year. _Glastonbury_. She’s _thirteen_ , Harry.” 

“I —” Harry curls in on himself, shoves his hands in his pockets and wonders whether it would be an avoidance tactic if he went to go make them some tea. Probably. “Well, almost fourteen.” 

Ellie sighs. “Listen, Haz. When I remarried, I told Jack that he wasn’t going to be Maisie’s dad. She already _had_ a father, and she didn’t need him, too. I’ve always been careful about boundaries with my husband, and I expected you would do the same with yours.” Ellie runs a hand through her hair, shaking out the dark mass of it. “You know I love Nick, Harry. That’s not the issue, I just don’t think it’s appropriate for him to be making those sorts of decisions about our kid.” 

Something deep in Harry’s heart twists, savage and awful, sending bitterness to his mouth unbidden. “You don’t — What?” 

“ _We’re_ her parents, Harry,” Ellie says emphatically, gesturing between them with one long hand. “Nick can’t make these calls, and especially not without consulting me first.” 

“But —” Harry doesn’t know what to say. But what? _But Nick helped change her nappies_ , maybe, or _but Nick lived with me after the divorce when we were just friends and sat up with her until four in the morning so I could sleep_. _But Nick taught her how to whistle and ride a bike_. 

_But she calls Nick’s mum Granny._

“He’s her godfather,” Harry says finally, taking a breath to force the bile back into his body. He’s learned the hard way that fights with Ellie never lead anywhere good, just to these revolving door rounds of shouting and tears and no good answers until he’s sitting across a glass table signing his name on a dotted line. 

Ellie raises an eyebrow. “That’s not an equivalent, Harry.” 

“It’s —” Harry looks down at the dark wood floorboards, the brightly-patterned rug in front of the door. “Yeah, I just — it’s not the same thing. Jack and Nick, that’s not a fair comparison.” 

Something in Ellie’s high forehead twists, a vein sharp and irritated. “I’m not arguing about this. This is non-negotiable. We’re co-parenting, and our spouses aren’t. That’s it. That was the agreement.” 

Harry can’t recall the agreement too well, just the plummet of cold sick fear in his stomach as they spoke through their representatives in hour long sessions in a glass and chrome office. Nick had been there even then, back at Harry’s watching the Sound of Music with Maisie even though he thought it was mental for a three-year-old to like singing governesses so much. 

“Listen, you’re going to have to tell Maize. I’m not about to be the bad guy just because Nick made some hair-brained call about Glasto and gets to be the cool one.” Ellie rubs her temple, shaking her head. “That’s going to blow, and I’m sorry about it, but this situation is just not… This isn’t ideal.” 

“No,” Harry agrees, awkward and hollow. “No, not really.” 

He and Ellie have one of the more uncomfortable, stilted cups of teas they’ve had since the first days of their divorce and then she leaves for rehearsal, pulling messy hair into a bun. Harry watches her turn the corner and sits down on the front steps of his house, cool breeze ruffling his shirt. The leafy street is quiet, for London, just the distant sound of traffic and a faint siren somewhere. A group of girls stroll past, arm-in-arm, barely giving him a second glance.  

There was a day Harry couldn’t just sit in front of his house, couldn’t move much outside without being papped or swarmed by young fans. These days people are mellower. The papers still love hawking his photo — and Maisie’s, apparently — but people don’t tweet about his every move anymore. 

“Mum — Mum, look,” says a girl on the street, pointing his way. “That’s Harry Styles.” 

Her mother’s face flushes and she puts a hand to her mouth. Harry waves, grins, something loosening in his chest. He wonders if she was one of the girls in the arenas a decade and a half ago, jumping up and down with her mates and screaming. Now she’s all grown up. Maybe it’s nice for her, to feel like she isn’t. 

*

“It was the most boring and pointless meeting _in the world_ ,” Nick is saying, pulling his jumper over his head and tossing it into the laundry basket. “Oh my god am I glad Hen and Alexa were there. We can have a little gossip and ignore all the boring bits. Did you know Alexa’s got a line of handbags up next?”

Harry shakes his head. He’s already in bed, watching as Nick goes to wash his face and take his contacts out, chattering all the while. Harry’s going to have to bring it up _sometime_. He didn’t have the heart earlier in the night, when Nick was toting Roscoe around the whole of the downstairs on his shoulders so that Roscoe could shout _I am the king, I am the king_ over and over again. 

“I’m going to make her name one ‘the Grimshaw’. It’ll be a giant baby changing bag, eau du wee included.” Water runs from the sink, then shuts off. “Fashion council, honestly. Still have no bloody idea what I do except natter on about tie width, but it’s a nice side-gig, innit.” Nick emerges from the en suite with his hair all messed up, glasses perched on his nose. “And I am a fashion icon.” He shimmies in his natty old Christmas jumper and pyjama bottoms, snickering. 

“Shake it, baby,” says Harry, smirking at him lasciviously. “Show me what you’re working with.” 

“I am working with a decrepit physique ready for retirement,” Nick says, lifting his jumper to frown at his stomach. “Didn’t I used to have a six-pack? What happened to that?” 

“You never had a six-pack, love.” 

“Well, I should have done.” Nick pulls his shirt back down and climbs over the bed until he’s propped half over Harry, grinning maniacally down at him. “ _You’ve_ got that four-pack still going, you child.” 

“I am thirty-eight,” Harry says, dignified like someone who has not fairly recently broken a coffee maker at a party trying to make expresso when dead drunk. 

“So you say.” Nick’s face goes a little soft, and he brushes a few stray curls from Harry’s face. “You’re all right, Styles.” 

There is genuinely nothing Harry wants less than to wipe that sweet look off Nick’s face and also probably forgo the sex they would get to have if Harry didn’t have to have this conversation with him. Harry would rather eat deep-fried grasshoppers. He would rather drive through LA traffic. Still, after nearly a decade of cohabitation with a chronic avoider of important conversations, Harry’s learned to distinguish the things you actually have to discuss from the things you can push off and watch X-Factor instead. 

Mostly. 

“Grim, there’s something we have to talk about,” Harry says, carefully. 

Nick looks pained before Harry even gets to it. He huffs a sigh and collapses on the pillow next to Harry, glasses going askew. “Am I getting knighted finally? I always fancied being Sir Nicholas Grimshaw. Sounds right posh, that.” 

“Ellie stopped by today.” Harry plucks at the duvet cover, rubbing imaginary stains from the white. “She, um. She’s not wild about Maisie possibly going to Glasto.” 

Nick’s eyebrows tilt, bizarre from this angle. “Why? It’s just Glasto. She’s thirteen; she’ll love it. I’ll be there and she can hang about with Kiki Montez and the Divine Emperors and whatnot when I’m busy. Get some photos; that bloody Amelia girl from school won’t be able to top that.” 

“Els thinks… Well, she thinks Maize is too young to go, this year.” Harry twists his hands further into the duvet, running the fabric over and over his forefinger. “Actually, she’s sort of, uh. She’s saying it.” 

Nick sits up, shedding covers and frowning. “What, does she honestly think I’d not look after her? What, does she think I’ll go get pissed with the Go Leans, leave Maisie to get lost in VIP and develop an addiction to heroin? _Plenty_ of kids go to Glasto. Lily went every year as a child, for the love of the Queen. She turned out fine!” 

“I mean, yeah, but she… Like, Maize is a little older now, and —”

“And _we_ took her. It’s not like she’s never been. Like, three years in a row, when she was under ten,” Nick says crossly. “She was fine. For god’s sake, Ellie came up too on the Saturday, in ’27!” 

Harry’s intestines are twisting around each other. “Well, I mean… I kind of agree that you should have, like. Brought it up. I mean, with us, before you told her she could go. Maybe.” 

“I —” Nick stops, shoulders slumping. “I, yeah. Yeah, that’s a fair point.” 

Carefully, Harry slides an arm around Nick’s middle, pulling him until they’re leaning together. “It’s okay, it’s just — like. Ellie sort of would rather… She’d rather you not —”

Colour drains from Nick’s cheeks all at once. “Oh. _Oh._ Yeah, okay, I get it,” he says, in a rush, putting his hands up as if to halt something from coming at him. 

_But you packed her lunch for primary school_ , Harry wants to say, but can’t find the words. _But you got Henry to make her a Max costume from Where The Wild Things are when she was eight._

“ _Daaaaaad_!” Roscoe wails from downstairs, his voice growing ever closer. “Daddy!” 

He and Nick eye each other. “You, I think,” Harry says. 

“I thought the inflection was particularly you, actually,” Nick says, with a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. 

“ _Daddyyyyyy_!!” 

“Fine, fine,” huffs Nick, hauling himself out of bed and towards the door, tugging at his jumper where it’s ridden up. Harry can hear Nick talking to Roscoe out in the corridor, his cadence warm and familiar. 

“Fuck,” Harry says quietly, into his hands. He flops over so that he’s half under the pillow, blocking the world from view. “Fuck.”

*

In a moment of television weakness Harry watches a special on Channel 4 about crafts with children when he’s putting off finishing a new song, the lyrics too tangled up in his brain to make any proper sense yet. Harry knows, intellectually, that this is never a good idea as he always comes away from these sorts of shows feeling that he’s not being as creative a parent as he could be, which always somehow leads to a hands-on activity that wreaks havoc over his surroundings while Harry apologises profusely to their cleaner. It’s no good just knowing, though. Harry remains helpless in the face of manipulative musical scores and preciously situated montages. 

So, inevitably, before he fully realises the seriousness of his actions Harry is making jam with Roscoe after school, although ‘making jam’ might be an overly generous descriptor of their activities so far. It’s possible that jam-making should be undergone with a kid of a little older than five, or possibly should be undertaken only in television studios with closely monitored child actors. So far they’ve mostly just accomplished turning the kitchen into a sticky, scented cesspit of strawberry mash and discarded jar decorations.

“Oh my god,” Nick says, pausing in the doorway with his coat and scarf still on. He blinks at the display, looking moderately disgusted at how effectively the tidy harmony of the room has been destroyed. “It looks like someone’s been _murdered_ in here.” 

“Yesssss,” Roscoe hisses, and then hums the Bond theme song, smearing jam bits onto a previously unaffected cupboard door like strawberry blood splatters. 

Harry makes his absolute best apologetic eyes at Nick, as wide and limpid as possible. “Just some fruits,” he says. “We’ll clean it up.” 

The puppy eyes seem to help a bit, smoothing most of the creases in Nick’s forehead as he shakes his head at them, the edges of his mouth starting to twitch up into a smile. “You’re both nutters,” Nick says, unwinding his scarf. “I’m staying well far from this crime scene.” 

“That’s what you think.” Roscoe attempts to spoon some cooled jam mixture into an empty jar, spilling most of the product onto the counter. “ _But you were wrong_.” 

“Was I?” Nick hangs his coat up in the hall and then returns, getting his laptop out and settling into a chair in the dining room, a safe few metres away from the damage, although Harry can see him eye the spread of sugar-mixture warily. 

Harry reaches over Roscoe’s head to tilt the jar to a more accommodating angle so the jam slides into the glass with a satisfying thunk. The outside feels gross and sticky, but that’ll be easy enough to remedy later. 

“Jamjamjamjamjamjamjam,” chants Roscoe, shimmying in place as he pours. “I want it on a crepe. Can we have crepes for our tea?” 

“Uh-huh,” Harry says, wiping jam off the lip of the jar. “That tradition should be… preserved.” He beams at Nick, waggling his eyebrows. 

Nick snorts, looking up from his computer over the rims of his glasses. “Nice one, Haz.” 

“Thanks.” Harry beams, wiggling his shoulders a bit. 

“I don’t get it,” Roscoe says flatly, blinking up at him with the incredible ennui of a five year old who has been given fashion advice on multiple occasions from Naomi Campbell. 

“It’s another word for jam,” Harry explains, licking his thumb so he can get a streak of strawberry from Roscoe’s chubby cheek. “Preserves is, I mean. And to preserve something means to keep it, so. They mean the same thing. Get it?” 

Roscoe is long past listening. He’s moved on entirely to wrapping the disgustingly sticky jars with brightly coloured ribbon, singing the wrong lyrics to a Haim song playing over the kitchen speakers and ignoring Harry’s words entirely. Harry’s wit is highly unappreciated in the primary school demographic, he feels. Or at least, the primary school demographic currently at work in his kitchen.  

“Haz, what’s on the docket for the weekend?” Nick is peering at the kitchen whiteboard, eyes in a squint. 

“You should see the optometrist.” Harry frowns at the distance between Nick and the board. “That’s not very far.” 

“The optometrist will just tell me I’m going blind.” Nick waves a hand airily. “I already know that. I can just ask you. We’ve got — something, on Saturday, right? Dinner, or summat? What’s on for tomorrow?” 

Harry peers at the whiteboard. It’s possible he should also see the optometrist, although he’s never needed glasses. He wonders if they’d suit him. He could get big weird ones, in a funny colour, maybe. “Tonight is just us at home, and then tomorrow day you have radio, and I have a meeting with the label. Oh, and tomorrow night at seven we have parents’ evening for Maisie, then I’m going up to Zayn’s for a bit on Friday day, but I’ll be back in time to get Roscoe from school. Ellie’ll drop Maisie by before dinner. We should tell Maisie about Glasto on Friday sometime, which should be fun.” Harry makes a face. “Family time on Saturday day and Henry’s dinner at seven that night — you’ll have to pick a suit for that, I think, we’re going semi-formal — and on Sunday we have —” 

Nick coughs, frowning at his computer, brows knit together. “I — uh. What was on Thursday?” 

“Radio for you, meeting for me and then Senior School parents’ evening. Ro, don’t eat that, it’s been on the floor.” Roscoe sticks his tongue out at Harry but ultimately capitulates, handing him the contraband strawberry in question. 

“Haz I —” Nick swallows, looking steadily down at his keyboard. “Should I be going to that?” 

Harry rockets his head up, squinting at Nick for a baffling minute. “I — of course you should.” But then Ellie’s face swims up in his mind, motioning between the two of them and saying _We’re her parents_ , and Harry’s oesophagus clogs up like he’s just eaten a glob of peanut butter. “Shouldn’t you?” 

There’s an awful sort of hesitation on Nick’s face where normally he’s sweet and open, a shadow coasting over his green eyes. “Um,” Nick says, trailing off. He’s looking at Roscoe, who has apparently dunked his entire face in jam, from the looks of him. “I think — I’ll just stay back with Ro, yeah? Don’t want to, like.” Nick shrugs, awkward, not meeting Harry’s eyes. 

_Don’t want to like, what?_ Harry wants to ask, but doesn’t. He knows the answer, and it’s awful, and it’s making his stomach cave in on itself. 

“Do dinosaurs like jam?” Roscoe asks, breaking the hush. He gathers a bunch of strawberry liquid in his hands, dumping it carefully into another jar. Nearly all of it oozes around the sides. “I s’pose they couldn’t make fire.” 

Nick and Harry eye each other, snorting in unison. Nick shuts his computer and goes to swing Roscoe into the air and then into a cuddle, pressing Roscoe’s sticky body into Nick’s nice clean shirt. “What do you think, peanut? Are dinosaurs jam aficionados?” Nick smiles into Roscoe’s messy face but there’s something a little lacking around his eyes, something that jabs its way into Harry’s ribcage and dampens his lungs. 

“Yes,” Roscoe says solemnly. “They told me that. I was born from an egg in the top secret dinosaur exhibit in the zoo.” 

“Were you? Funny, I thought I’d remembered something about a hospital.” Nick raises an eyebrow. “Or was that just a big trick?” 

Roscoe sticks his grubby hand into his mouth, licking the jam from his fingers. “I teleported from the zoo.”

“Obviously,” Nick says, licking gamely at Roscoe’s proffered other jam hand. 

“Obviously,” Harry echoes, weakly. 

*

At half five on Thursday Harry kisses Nick goodbye at the door like a 1950s husband, Roscoe clinging to Nick’s back like a very determined monkey. “I’ll see you later,” Harry says, doing his best not to let his discomfort show on his face. He’s fairly certain he’ll always be a bit rubbish at hiding his facial expressions, which is inconvenient when he’s trying not to upset his kid. 

“Okay,” Nick says, looking about as uncomfortable as Harry feels. “Yeah, you should, uh. You should ask the English Literature teacher about the book choices for next term. I know Maisie’s feeling a little… Talked down to. Not challenged, or something.” He shifts, hoisting Roscoe higher up on his back as he studies the pattern of the welcome rug. “I mean, if you want. It’s not important. It’s whatever.” 

“Whatever,” agrees Roscoe, biting the shoulder of Nick’s hoodie. Lady Dogiva yips in agreement, circling around Nick’s legs like she wants to jump up with Roscoe and join in. 

“I’ll ask,” Harry says quickly.

“And, um. You know, the press thing. Just — check, will you? If she’s okay with the whole nonsense. Since Aimee says it’s going around school, and all.” 

“Yeah, of course.” Harry leans in again to kiss Nick on the mouth, and then reaches around to pinch Roscoe’s side until he giggles. “Be good for your dad, Ro.” 

Roscoe’s giggles silence as soon as the door shuts with a thump. Harry fights the impulse to slump to the ground and have a mopey sit down on the front steps instead of going to the school and talking to teachers and being an adult like he’s meant to. On nearly every other parents’ evening Nick’s been in the passenger’s seat on the way, doing terrible impressions of Maisie’s most hated teachers and then charming the trousers off everyone in sight at the school. 

The car feels very quiet as Harry buckles in, holding only an emptiness that swallows him up. He turns on Radio 1 for the company and drives carefully, gnawing on his lower lip until it’s raw. 

*

The house echoes around him when Harry gets home, rooms silent but for a faint wheezing where Lady Dogiva snores in her bed by the stairs. The kitchen — still a bit worse for wear, after the jam fiasco — is empty, and so is the living room. Harry’s about to go upstairs and check the bedrooms when he pokes his head into the conservatory. 

Nick lies asleep on the sofa, Roscoe curling into his chest with one hand clenched in Nick’s hoodie. Shadows sweep the floor but for soft blue light from the _enjoy_ sign, the colour ghosting over their slack features, both mouths open slightly as they doze. Nick’s big hand splays nearly the width of Roscoe’s back, keeping him close. Harry’s heart swoops in his ribs, clanging up against the bone. He snaps a picture, and then five more from other angles, just in case. 

About eleven years ago, when Nick was still in the old flat and Harry was still married, Harry and Ellie had gone out to some gig or another and left Maisie with Nick for the evening. Harry’d let himself in to pick Maisie up after, calling for Nick in the quiet rooms until he found them in the lounge, sleeping, like this on one of the sofas. He remembers how the blue light had merged their dark hair so it looked like the strands ran into each other, how comfortable and _right_ his kid had looked sleeping on Nick’s slowly rising chest. Harry hadn’t had the heart to wake them. He’d texted Ellie and sat on the opposite sofa watching for so long that he'd fallen asleep too, waking disoriented the next morning to Maisie sticking her grubby fingers up Harry's nose, laughing uproariously in her baby voice as Nick filmed them on his phone in the background. 

He wonders if he’d known, then. Maybe a little. 

“Hi,” Harry murmurs, kneeling by their heads. He runs a careful hand along Nick’s cheek. “Hi, love.” 

Nick snore-coughs to an outstandingly undignified awakening, jolting full-bodily so he has to clutch at Roscoe to keep him from sliding to the floor. Roscoe snores on, unfazed. “Hi,” Nick croaks, eyelashes sweeping his cheeks as he regains consciousness. 

“Your back is too old for sofa-sleeping now, Grimmy.” Harry pokes Nick’s cheek obnoxiously. “Osteoporosis is fast approaching.” 

“Shaddup,” Nick slurs, batting at Harry’s face with his free arm. “Horrible child.” 

“You love me,” Harry says smugly. 

“God help me, I do.” Nick groans, heaving himself to a seated position. He peers down at Roscoe, looking faintly surprised and desperately tender. “Still sleeping. Incredible. He’s a marvel of our modern age.”  

“We’ll submit him to some sort of national registry,” Harry agrees. “C’mon, let’s get you both upstairs.” 

Harry follows Nick and Roscoe up the steps, smiling soppily at the way Roscoe clutches around Nick’s neck, his feet bobbling with every step on either side of Nick’s torso. Nick eases him into his spaceman bed, tucking the duvet around him securely. Harry leans in the doorway and has a very strong emotion. 

Nick looks up from Roscoe after a long moment, looking almost caught out until he rolls his eyes, mouth twisting. _Sap_ , he mouths. 

_Yep,_ Harry mouths back, unrepentant. 

With a slightly giggly push and pull, Nick manoeuvres Harry out of Roscoe’s room and shuts the door behind him, catching Harry’s wrists and backing him up into the wall to nuzzle into Harry’s neck. 

“Hi,” laughs Harry, going pliant and letting Nick manhandle him about a bit. 

“Hi,” Nick mumbles, mouth open and sloppy over Harry’s skin. Harry leans his head back until his skull thunks against the wall, giving Nick room to work with. 

“We should maybe make it into our room,” says Harry, breath catching a little bit at the way Nick’s teeth are scraping over his jawline. “Instead of, like. Getting it on outside the door of our five-year-old child.” 

“So many stairs,” Nick whines, nudging a skinny leg in between Harry’s and pressing in. “Why do we have a house with so bloody many stairs?” 

“C’mon, lazy.” Harry tugs Nick by the loops of his trousers. “Just one more floor, c’mon.” 

Nick whinges and moans the entire way, stumbling over his gawky limbs until they’re giggling and collapsing over the bed, Nick draped over Harry like a very friendly throw blanket, knobbly joints bumping into each other. Nick’s as pointy as ever, sharp elbows and divots of his collarbones digging into Harry. Nick wiggles up Harry’s body unsteadily until he can fit their mouths together, lips hot and wet over Harry’s, a little sloppy. Too sleepy for technique or not, Harry moans a bit at the press of Nick’s mouth, the slick feeling of Nick’s tongue fucking into his mouth. 

“Off,” mumbles Nick, stretching Harry’s shirt all out of place as he tries to tug it off without moving Harry from where he’s pressed against the bed. 

Harry snorts and shimmies it over his head accommodatingly, tossing the fabric vaguely in the direction of the laundry basket. “You sure you’re up for this? Seem a little knackered. We could just sleep.” 

“‘m fine,” Nick mumbles, vowels indistinct but determined. He goes back to Harry’s neck, biting the skin there as he forces his hand down past the press of Harry’s jeans to grope promisingly at his arse, fingers spread wide over one cheek. “We’re gonna do this. Gonna fuck you. Properly, yeah.” 

Harry is somewhat dubious that Nick will be able to remain conscious long enough for something that logistically involved, but he spreads his legs anyway, lets Nick unbutton his trousers and then kicks them down off his legs when Nick makes a cross, grumpy sound at how difficult they are to remove. 

“Too tight trousers.” Nick unzips his hoodie and gets caught halfway out of his shirt, wiggling ridiculously a bit like Lady Dogiva when she tries to play dead and actually ends up squirming around on her back for a while. Harry leans over to lend a hand, pulling the t-shirt over Nick’s head and retrieving his glasses from where they’ve been tugged off inside the collar. 

“All the better to see you with, my dear,” Nick says as Harry slides them back over his nose, waggling his eyebrows. “Gonna —” Nick yawns, big and loud. “Gonna eat you. Eat you up.” 

“Are you?” 

“Don’t patronise me, Styles.” Nick presses Harry back into the mattress, falling on top of him. “I’m being very sexy.” 

What is — what is perhaps slightly embarrassing, or at least a little bit pathetic, maybe, is that Harry sort of agrees. Nick’s practically incoherent and half-asleep, making no sense as he gropes clumsily at Harry’s cock but the ungainly advances are working just fine. Harry’s hard and wants it, which makes him feel a bit petulant at the far from unlikely prospect that Nick might fall asleep before following through on his promises. “Well hurry up, then,” Harry says, pressing his hips up into Nick’s hand. 

“Just gotta —” Nick yawns again, ducking over Harry’s bird tattoos, then licks at a nipple absently. “Gotta get the slick.” 

Harry leans past him to the bedside table, groping for the drawer where they keep the lube and the condoms they use when they need to be a bit tidier. He’ll probably have to prep himself, with Nick in this state, which is okay. Harry feels out the bottle with the tips of his fingers and then bats it towards him, flushing with success as he shifts his balance back to the bed, lube clutched in his fist. 

“Got it,” Harry says, pleased. “Now shove up, Grimshaw, I’ve gotta —” 

Nick snores, mouth open and breath fluttering over Harry’s stomach. 

_Dammit_.

Harry sulks down at him, looking past Nick’s lax face to where Harry’s cock is still hard and pressing up at the thin fabric of his pants. Briefly, he entertains the thought of jacking off with Nick still asleep on his stomach. He’d probably come all over Nick’s face, at this distance. _Kinky, Styles,_ he thinks, with no small amount of satisfaction.  

Sighing, Harry replaces the lube in the bedside table and gently eases Nick’s glasses off, folding them and putting them carefully over their alarm. “You owe me a proper dicking,” Harry tells the top of Nick’s head. He stares up at the ceiling, stroking Nick’s hair as he thinks uncharitable things about spunk for a while, before he can sleep. 

*

Harry intends to collect on that dicking in the morning but he wakes to the sound of Nick thumping downstairs to get Roscoe ready for school and then Harry realises he has to rush to make it up to Zayn’s in time for lunch and Nick’s off for work and by the time Harry gets home they’ve got dog and kid duties and Harry’s got to make dinner and there’s no time for sexual favours. Being an adult is, occasionally, resoundingly rubbish. 

Ellie drops Maisie off before Friday dinner like always, and Roscoe runs to the door at the sound of her keys in the lock, followed immediately by Lady Dogiva's clattering paws. If Roscoe had a tail like hers, there’s no chance it wouldn’t be waggling ecstatically. Harry pokes his head from the kitchen to see. 

“ _Stick em up_ ,” Roscoe says, when Maisie comes in. Harry swears she’s taller and more grown-up every single time he sees her. She looks grouchy, soft chin set as she flings her bag to the side of the hall before marching into the kitchen.  

“Hi, love,” Harry says, wondering if he should be hiding his chopping knives and whether she’s found out about Glasto. _Maybe Ellie’s told her already_ , he thinks hopefully. Nick had looked sick with dread when Harry’d reminded him of that particular task, earlier. Harry does not disagree.

“Where’s Grimmy?” Maisie demands, stealing a handful of the peppers from the cutting board and biting through a slice like she’s beheading something. 

Harry nods towards the living room, feeling a bit like he’s just endorsed Nick walking the plank as he watches Maisie stomp away. 

“She didn’t stick ‘em up properly,” says Roscoe sadly, in the doorway. Harry goes in to tickle him until he’s laughing and batting him off, running in the opposite direction shouting something about a dinosaur mission. 

The radio is a bit too loud to hear any murder from the other room so Harry turns it down and tries to chop as quietly as he can. He gives up halfway through the carrots and creeps towards the door, pressing himself near the doorway. He can hear the Kardashians talking about something on telly, and, under that, Maisie, sounding choked up and frustrated. 

“But like, I never _said_ that,” she’s saying. “And then Amelia found those pictures of us at the picnic online and said I looked like a _ghost_ and also my hair was a _bird’s nest_ and the whole _world_ would think I was a twat and it sucked.” 

“Amelia’s a dick,” Nick says emphatically, and behind the doorway Harry suppresses a snort, because that’s one parenting technique. 

“She’s my _friend_.” Harry can picture Maisie’s frustrated pout, the tension in her wide forehead. 

“Really?” Nick’s voice is skeptical. “Would a _friend_ make you feel shitty about yourself all the time?” 

Harry backs up slow, feeling abruptly awful for intruding and even worse for having to break the Glasto news after dinner. He goes back to the kitchen and finishes mixing the salad, feeling so many things he can’t manage to untangle them in his belly. 

* 

They tell Maisie about Glastonbury after Roscoe’s bedtime. Maisie takes it about as well as expected, which is to say, horribly. 

“But you _said,_ ” whines Maisie, voice thick. She stomps her foot — genuinely stomps it, right there on the throw rug, like Veruca Salt — and sniffs, loudly. “ _God_ , I _told_ Amelia I was going and now I can’t go and this is _so unfair_.” 

Nick looks as helpless as Harry’s ever seen him, as helpless as he had when he’d held Roscoe for the first time, as helpless has he had when he’d met Maisie in the waiting room of the Portland Hospital thirteen years ago. Like he’s afraid his hands will accidentally crush what he’s holding. “I’m sorry, May,” Nick says, quietly. “I shouldn’t have told you that; it wasn’t fair of me.” 

“Ugh, I _hate_ you.” Maisie’s face is bright red, tears welling in her eyes and Harry recoils. It’s not the first time Maisie’s said something like that — she went through a stage at around four when she hated anyone who made her wear a shirt — but it’s the first time it sounded like _this_. Friends with teenagers had warned them, but Harry hadn’t fully realised what they meant. 

“I’m sorry,” Nick says again. His face is pale, shell-shocked. Harry touches his elbow, lightly. 

“May, please don’t say that,” Harry says, a little shaky. “It’s not nice.” 

“ _You’re_ not nice!” Maisie folds her arms tightly over her chest, glaring. “Was it Mum? Did Mum say I couldn’t go and that’s why I’m going to be the _total laughingstock of school_ for the _rest of my life_?” 

Harry shifts, uncomfortably. He hates lying, but putting all the blame on Ellie doesn’t feel right. 

“No,” Nick says, before Harry can come up with a response. “No, it was my decision.” 

“It was _all_ of our decision,” Harry says. 

“ _Ugh_.” Maisie kicks at one of the old trunks by the sofa, viciously. “This is _so unfair,_ you _said I could go_ , and now I can’t go? _Why_?” 

“We told you.” Nick’s voice is still even, warm and careful even though Harry can tell he’s upset. “You’re too young, still. You’d need one of us to be with you the whole time, and if I’m there for work I can’t be.” 

Harry can still hear Nick last night — ‘ _Lily’s parents took her to Glasto as a child! She turned out fine!’_ — but there’s no trace of that in his voice now. 

“God, that’s a _really stupid reason_ , Dad,” Maisie snaps, eyes fixed on Nick’s. “ _Lily Allen_ practically grew up at Glastonbury and she’s awesome and her parents aren’t _lame.”_ She turns on her heel, storming out of the family room and up the stairs with great weighted stomps. The slam of her door reverberates through the house a moment later. 

“Hulk smash?” asks Harry, attempting a grin. 

Nick’s looking up the stairs after her, a bit like he’s been left behind by the train. “Did you hear that?” 

“The door? I think they could hear that in East London.” 

“No.” Nick looks back at Harry, a sort of tender fear playing about his features. “No, she, uh. She called me —” Nick falls quiet, almost guiltily. 

“Dad,” Harry says, realising all at once. He reaches out for Nick, tugging him forward by the loop in his jeans. “She called you Dad.” 

“She totally hates me right now,” Nick says, sort of dazed. “And like — I should care about that bit first, right? But…” 

“But she called you Dad.” Harry’s chest is pretty much bursting. His cheeks ache a bit because he’s smiling so hard. He kisses Nick’s jaw, lightly. “You’re her dad.” 

“ _A_ dad,” allows Nick, beaming. “I mean, some might say, the _best_ dad.” 

Harry snorts. “Just because you’ll watch Princess Diaries with her fourteen times a week.” 

“Yeah,” Nick says. “That’s the best film of our lifetime, obviously. Alongside 17 Again, of course.” 

Nick’s eyes are lit up like fairy lights at Christmas, the smile lines deep at their corners. Harry tilts their lips together, kisses his smiling mouth.

*

Lady Dogiva is a rubbish tea party attendant but Roscoe insists that she have a place at the little table, wiggling while he tries to keep her in place. Roscoe is a persuasive host: he even managed to get Maisie out of her room for the first time all day. Harry swears she must have food hidden in there somewhere. 

“Stay,” Roscoe demands, imperiously pointing at the dog’s wet nose. “Stay, Lady.” 

Maisie hooks her leg over Lady Dogiva’s spotted back. “There,” she says. “Sorted. You can pour now, Ro.” 

Harry holds out his little cup for Roscoe to pour tea into — it’s water, but that won’t stop Roscoe from adding sugar — and tries to stay as still as possible so he doesn’t slop liquid all over the spread. 

“One of these cups of tea has poison in,” Roscoe announces when he’s finished. He stares at them each in turn — Maisie, Lady Dogiva, and then Harry himself. “You don’t know which one.” 

“Are you supposed to tell people that at the beginning?” Maisie peers into her cup. “Is it the sugar?” 

“I’m a secret agent,” Roscoe says. He shakes his long curls out of his face, impatiently. “Now hurry up. I have to save England.” 

Lady Dogiva barks and Harry shushes her, exchanging glances with Maisie before they nod very seriously. “I understand, Special Agent Roscoe.” 

“Good.” Roscoe frowns for a moment, considering. “Pause, I have to wee. _Don’t move._ ” He trots to the door, looking back every few minutes to be sure they’re staying put. “Don’t move!” he calls, from the other room. 

Maisie snorts. “He’s so weird.” 

“Yeah,” Harry says fondly. 

There’s a great shout from downstairs and both Harry and Maisie jolt, splashing sugar water onto the hardwood floor. A moment later Nick’s wheezy cackle wafts from the stairs, followed by Pixie’s snorts. Harry considers going to check if they’ve broken the entire house, but Roscoe had been very specific about staying put. 

“So, Maize,” Harry says, setting his teacup down on the tablecloth. 

“So, Dad,” she says, rolling her eyes. 

“Last night — you know, when you were yelling at us about Glasto —”

Maisie’s face tenses, smile dropping from her round eyes. “Yeah.” 

“Well, just before you went upstairs, I noticed that you…” Harry pauses, fumbling for the way to say what he wants to. “You called Nick Dad.” 

Maisie pulls her lower lip through her teeth at an angle, so it pokes guiltily from the side of her mouth. She shrugs, minutely. “Yeah, I.” There are apparently fourteen hundred invisible bits of fluff on her jeans, because she’s plucking bits off compulsively and depositing them on the floor. “Sorry.” 

“Why —”  Harry frowns, unsettled. “Why would you be sorry, bug?” 

“Eugh,” Maisie says, half-heartedly groaning at the old nickname. She falls silent, still picking at her trousers. “I, just. Like, I don’t want to make him uncomfortable.” 

“Uncomfortable?” Harry reaches out to hold onto Maisie’s elbow, sweeping his thumb over the roll of her checked shirt. “Sweetheart, why would you think that would make him uncomfortable?” 

“Well, he’s not — I mean, it’s weird, isn’t it? Having, like.” Maisie chews her lip through her teeth again, worrying it raw. “Like so many parents. Or whatever. That’s probably weird.” 

“A lot of your friends have more than two parents. Or less than two. Families all look different.” They’ve had this conversation before. Nick says a Catholic school might call their family a broken home, which only makes Harry laugh. What do you call it when breaking something is the only way to make it whole?

“Yeah, but not, not like _that_. It’s like, they have a step-mum and a step-dad. Not a dad-dad and a mum-mum and another dad-dad _and_ a step-dad. It’s weird.” Maisie’s curling in on herself, narrow shoulders a concave angle around her chest. She tucks one knee up close to her chin. 

Harry can’t help it, he pulls Maisie in to him and fits her into his shoulder, breathing in her sweet fruity shampoo. She’s got a whole stack of toiletries now, not like when she’d only have the shampoo and conditioner that were shaped like fish. “It’s not weird, love. It’s good. It’s nice.” He smooths a curl from her forehead, careful. “And, you know, I don’t think I’ve seen Nick that happy since he held Roscoe for the first time.” 

Maisie’s back stiffens under his arm. “But I was mad at him,” she says, quietly. 

“Yeah,” Harry says, smoothing the lines of her shirt. “I think — if you felt comfortable — he would like it, if you wanted to call him Dad.” 

Maisie sniffs, quietly, a few tears dripping onto Harry’s jeans. He keeps rubbing softly at her shoulders, trying his best not to cry himself. It would be far from the first time, if he’s honest. They’re a family of criers. Nick whinges about it, but Harry’s caught him sniffling at sentimental TV adverts more than once. 

“You didn’t stay put.” Roscoe is standing in the doorway, arms akimbo. 

“No, soz, mate,” says Harry, discreetly wiping at his nose as he shifts back into position. Maisie ducks her cheek against her shirt collar, wiping the wet from her skin. “Where were we? Poisoned tea?” 

“One of you will perish,” Roscoe says, matter-of-fact. Harry wonders whether Liam brought a word of the day calendar with him to babysitting last week. 

*

Harry doesn’t really expect Nick to have picked a suit with two hours left before they have to leave for the dinner, but Harry’s ready to go and Roscoe is already kitted out in braces and shiny black shoes and a suit jacket, pursing his lips at himself in the mirror in the conservatory. Nick is behind him shooting a video on his phone, stuffing his big fist into his mouth to keep himself from giggling too loudly. Lady Dogiva barks, wanting to join in. 

Harry beams at them, kisses the back of Nick’s neck. “I’m going to go check on the bug, back in a sec.” 

Nick waves him off, still filming and choking on wheezy laughs. Harry climbs the stairs two at a time — still got it — and knocks right next to the chalkboard sign that says _Maisie Styles_ with a little flower next to it. There’s no response, and after a minute Harry gives in and opens the door. 

“May?” he asks, to the empty room. He hears a sound, a faint sniffle. 

Maisie is huddled on the floor of her walk-in wardrobe, surrounded by a sea of discarded clothing, her face buried in her hands. Chipped glitter nails hide her eyes and her shoulders shake, helplessly. 

“Daddy, I can’t go tonight,” she chokes. “I just can’t.” 

Harry’s heart clenches, painful jolting to the tips of his fingers. He sits next to her, pulls her into his arms. “Why can’t you go, honey? What’s going on?” 

Maisie is silent for a minute, just the heart-breaking sound of her sniffling into Harry’s shirt until she manages, quiet and thick, “I’m going to look stupid.” 

“Oh, love, no,” Harry says, brushing hair away from her face. “No, you’re beautiful. You’ll look beautiful.” 

Maisie’s brown head is just shaking no, over and over again. “I can’t, I _can’t_.” 

Harry feels a bit like he’s been given a kettle and told to build a fence, and the directions are all in Danish. “It’s just going to a restaurant, bug. We’ll just walk in and have our tea and walk out and come home.” 

“There will be cameras everywhere and my face is _awful_ ,” Maisie says, wobbly and tight. “I hate it, I hate it, I can’t go, I _can’t_.” 

Harry swallows hard, wills himself to not start crying with her, because now the fence is the only thing that can keep out the foxes and _he_ bought the kettle, and it’s his fault, it’s all entirely his fault. “It’s not awful, honey, your face is lovely. It’s your face, of course it’s lovely.” 

Maisie’s still crying, wet and small. “The pictures will be _everywhere_ and I look _so bad_.”  

“I — you don’t, love, I swear you don’t. But you don’t have to come, honey, not if you don’t want to.” Harry wants to rip out his life by the roots, start again in a way that won’t lead him here, sitting in his daughter’s wardrobe and holding her while she hates herself. 

“Thanks,” Maisie says damply, wiping her face on her big t-shirt — it’s Nick’s, that old black Dr Dre one, so worn it’s nearly threadbare — still crying a bit, shaky like she’s getting over a fever. “Could you, um. Could you maybe leave me alone now, please?” 

“Sure, honey,” Harry says, trying his absolute best not to completely lose it. “I love you. I’ll be upstairs if you need anything, okay?” 

Maisie’s not looking at him, turning away to fold up some of her jumpers and Harry does as she asks, walking through her messy bedroom and up the stairs to the next floor like his heart isn’t on the verge of collapsing. 

Harry shuts the door to their bedroom as quietly as he can manage and then breaks down, sobbing hard and silent, chest convulsing like something is clawing its way out of his ribs. 

He can’t fix the world for Maisie. He wants to, _so_ much, but when she walks out the front door in the morning the world is going to take her and shape her, hold her and hurt her and Harry can’t do anything but watch and hope and welcome her home at the end of the day. But what if she comes home like _this,_ huddled on the floor and crying, and what if those bruises are breaks? What if they scar? What if he _made_ that world? 

“Haz?” Footsteps pound up the steps and the door opens and Harry can’t hold it together enough to stop, stop his chest from caving in. “Harry, do you know where we put the — _oh_ , darling.” Nick’s voice changes, soft and low and he gathers Harry up fiercely in his long arms, brushes at Harry’s cheeks, nudging his fingers away from his face. “Baby, what’s wrong?” 

Harry’s voice can’t quite form the words, too snotty to manage syllables so he just tips over and sobs, broken into Nick’s red checked shirt and Nick holds him through it, steady in the storm, rocking him a little and whispering endearments until Harry quiets down some, hiccuping. 

“Sorry,” Harry says, finally, leaning back enough to wipe at his running nose. “I think I ruined your shirt.” 

Nick looks down at it and shrugs. “Joke’s on you, popstar. Pretty sure this one’s yours.” 

Harry manages a watery chuckle. “Can’t really tell anymore, that.” 

“What’s going on, love?” Nick wipes at Harry’s cheeks with sweeps of his thumbs, peering down at him with warm, worried eyes. 

Harry shakes his head minutely, tilts forward until he’s buried into Nick’s neck again, clutching at the fabric at his back. “She didn’t ask for this,” he says, finally, “She didn’t — it’s my fault.” 

“What’s your fault?” 

“Maisie, she…” Harry sniffles, heart aching. “She hates this, the photographers, the… All of it. And it’s _my_ fault.” 

Nick hums, holding him tight. “Does she hate the photographers, love? Or the photographs?” 

Harry has no idea what Nick means. He’s never hated either, never minded much that the world was interested in him. Harry’s always liked the flash and flare of it, the warmth of the focused spotlight, unless it got the people around him hurt. Things have been so calm, comparatively, for the past decade that it never occurred to him that just this, just the prospect of a few paps outside a restaurant could be enough to shatter Maisie so completely. 

“Not all of us feel so effortlessly beautiful as you, Harold,” Nick says kindly. “I know a little something about that area.” 

Harry snorts, because Nick is always going on about looking rubbish in this or that and he never, ever does. He thunks his head back down into the curve of Nick’s shoulder, feeling so heavy he could break the floor.

“It’s not your fault, Haz.” Nick’s big hand is warm and firm at the back of Harry’s neck, and suddenly Harry’s reminded of that night in Nick’s old flat when Harry told Nick that he and Ellie were splitting up and he’d cried and Nick had held him, just like this. “You love her. You’re a wonderful father. She’s having a tough week. That’s all.” 

Harry doesn’t say anything, just lets Nick hold him, spreads damp through the fabric of the shirt they both share until he doesn’t have anything left in him anymore. He feels like a string that’s been cut, or a party balloon deflated, propped up in the circle of Nick’s arms. 

“Why don’t you have a little nap, Haz,” Nick says, after another moment. He pulls back and kisses Harry’s cheek, soft and warm over the wet places. “You rest a bit. I’m going to phone for a bit of help, I think.” 

“Kay,” Harry mumbles, too tired to argue. Nick gets Harry out of his suit jacket and button-down, stripped down to his pants and tucked under the duvet. He’s dropping off already, darkness closing in. 

“I love you,” Nick says, kissing him briefly on the lips, his hand lingering around Harry’s cheek. “It’s going to be okay, love. It’s all going to be fine.” 

* 

Harry comes to gradually, the sound of uproarious laughter rousing him to consciousness. He blinks at the dim room, gropes for his phone to check the time before he can stumble out of bed, reaching blindly for his shirt. 

Harry tracks the laughter downstairs to Maisie’s room, where light from her open door spills out onto the wood floor of the hallway.

“The most important thing to remember is that makeup is _not_ about looking hot,” Aimee is saying, waving a makeup brush in front of where Maisie is sat at her dressing table. “It’s about _feeling_ hot. And looking _interesting_. No one gives a shit about hot. Hot fades. _Interesting_ lasts forever.” 

Nick is cross-legged on Maisie’s four-poster bed, holding Roscoe in his lap while he plays on Nick’s phone. “Or, as Ian would put it, _bonkers_ lasts forever.” 

Aimee flips him off around Roscoe’s bent curls. Maisie snickers.  Aimee and Ian’s kid is impressively well-versed in profanity, unsurprisingly. 

“See this?” Aimee gestures at her face, the sweeps of dark eyeliner and bright orange lipstick. “This is to _intimidate_. You want to feel like you’re entering the room to the sound of Joan Jett’s Bad Reputation.” 

“MIA’s Bad Girls,” contributes Nick helpfully. 

“Baddest Bitch by Nicki Minaj,” says Harry, leaning in the doorway. 

“You guys are so old,” says Maisie, snorting. Through the mirror Harry can see that she’s grinning as Aimee sweeps dark stuff onto her lips. 

“Hi, love,” Nick says, patting the duvet next to him. “Want to join the party?” 

Harry slides in next to his husband, draping himself over Nick’s back like an octopus and peering over to watch Roscoe tap at the screen for that cup game. From the look of it, Roscoe has a higher score than Nick does. 

“How do I look, Dad?” asks Maisie, craning her neck to beam at him. 

“Intimidating,” Harry says, and Maisie’s green eyes light up like they would on Christmas morning when she was a child. 

“Cool,” she says, satisfied. “When are we leaving for the thing? I want Aimee to do my hair, too.” 

Harry’s stomach swoops and he grasps for Nick’s hand, squeezing as tightly as he can possibly manage. 

Nick smiles back at him, soft and open. “We’ve got time.”

*

The dinner goes smoothly, or as smoothly as anyone with small children can expect. Roscoe smears humus on Kate Moss’s Valentino, but Kate just laughs and says she’ll start the newest trend. Harry keeps a protective arm around Maisie as they walk into and out of the restaurant but she holds her head up, smiling tentatively into the flashing bulbs around them. Harry keeps blinking his surprise at Nick, who just beams at him and throws bits of paper at Aimee fondly. 

Maisie retreats to her bedroom almost immediately when they get home, though Harry can hear her video-chatting through the door, voice high and excited. Roscoe is tired and cranky, whining a bit as Harry gets him ready to bed as quickly as possible. If Harry rushes the traditional bedtime story a bit, _possibly_ skips four or five pages, maybe does one song instead of the usual two, no one’s to know. 

Nick is humming something tunelessly to himself in their bedroom, back bent over the chest of drawers when Harry finally makes it in, finished for the night. 

Harry leans against the door watching him for a moment. Nick needs to put everything away _just so_ before he can step back, frowning when the silver box is to the right of the picture frame as opposed to the left.  “Hi,” Harry says, finally. Nick turns and smiles at him, and the blindingly open sweetness in his familiar face still manages to shift Harry’s heart inside his body, even after all this time. “You should get on the bed.” 

“Mm?” asks Nick, quirking an eyebrow. 

“Yeah. My knees aren’t so great anymore.” Harry smirks, makes it dirty, a familiar twist of satisfaction curling in his belly as Nick’s eyes go dark and he does as he’s told. 

“You implying something there, popstar?” 

“Yep.” 

Nick snorts, which makes Harry rather miss the days when Nick would go all fidgety and fearful right about now, hungry-eyed and stone-throated while Harry shed clothing on his way to the bed. Back when they were starting up again after the divorce they’d both tremble, Nick’s pulse thrumming through his skin where Harry licked at his neck. 

Harry straddles Nick’s lap, running a hand through Nick’s chest hair. “You used to shiver when I did this,” Harry notes, and then flushes with satisfaction because Nick does, a quiver coursing through his body when Harry’s thumb edges over a nipple. 

“Back in the Dark Ages?” Nick’s hands edge up Harry’s thighs, thumbs running the seam to where Harry’s already hard and pressed against the fabric. “When I could get you off with a light breeze, fuck the come out of you and go again?” 

No forty-something year old father whose favourite films have makeover montages should have Nick’s raspy, knowing voice and say things that make Harry buck down against him without meaning to. Harry’s a full on adult and sometimes Nick makes him feel like a worked-up eighteen-year-old again, needy and begging for it. It’s a bit brilliant. “None of that,” Harry says, a little breathless as he rolls over to wiggle out of his jeans. “I’ve got a plan for you, Grimshaw.” 

“Have you?” Nick sounds politely curious, but Harry did not miss the way his hips twitched up. 

“Mm-hm.” Harry noses over Nick’s boxers, mouthing a bit at the head of his cock. “I’m gonna give you a damn good seeing too, Nicholas.” 

Nick laughs, brushing a bit of hair out of Harry’s eyes. “Are you? Well, go on, then.” 

Harry does, going at Nick’s cock with every trick in his arsenal, sloppy and enthusiastic so Nick groans in the back of his throat and clenches onto Harry’s hair with white knuckles. He opens Nick up after that, slow and slick and careful, using his tongue and his fingers and watching Nick’s toes curl over the sheets until he asks for him. Fucking Nick is — it’s always intense this way round, the almost startled exposure in Nick’s green eyes and the way his mouth opens, the press of Nick’s long fingers gripping Harry like he’s afraid they’ll be swept away. 

“Love you,” Harry breathes half into Nick’s slack mouth, hand cradling Nick’s neck so that his thumb brushes against the jut of his jaw. 

Nick surges forward, kisses him through it, and they rock slow for a moment. The tight press around Harry’s cock feels abruptly too much, setting the coil of his orgasm alight.

“Go on,” Nick breathes, hot into the shell of Harry’s ear and that’s enough, he’s coming, hard and electric. He slides out maybe too quickly and Nick hisses. Harry ducks down to take Nick’s cock into the back of his throat, curling two fingers into him until Nick’s groaning and pulling his hair as Harry swallows around him. 

They lie there for a moment, Nick panting into the dim room, Harry’s cheek pillowed on Nick’s thigh. A siren seeps through the quiet, the dull crush of distant traffic faint from the window. 

“How was that?” Harry asks, the question bubbling out before he can help it. 

“Was that okay?” Nick asks back in the squeaky voice he uses to imitate nearly everyone, but mostly Harry, voice helplessly fond. Harry blinks up at him expectantly until Nick laughs, tugging at Harry’s arms until their heads are close enough to kiss. “Yes, darling. You gave me a damn good seeing to.” 

“Still got it,” says Harry, puffing out his chest. 

“Yeah, popstar.” Nick pulls Harry into him, runs his fingers over Harry’s scalp. “You’ve still got it.” 

*

Ellie comes round on Sunday after her matinee to drop off Maisie’s French book and her jumper with the elbow patches without which Maisie informs Harry she will surely die. Harry had been in the garden with Roscoe, a little gross and sweaty but she doesn’t seem to mind, bustling her way around his kitchen like she knows where everything is, since she does. 

“The reviews are good,” Ellie’s saying, switching the kettle on and reaching for two mugs from the squeaky door cupboard with which Harry plans on having words later, “but that’s never an indicator. We’ll see how ticket sales look at the end of the week. How was your dinner? Saw the photos this morning. Maisie looked incredible; did you two buy her that lipstick?” 

Harry shakes his head. “Did May say anything about it?” 

Ellie taps a finger to the side of her mouth, considering. “Mm. Not really, no, why?” 

“She —” Harry pauses, takes a breath. He cranes his head so he can peer down the corridor. The Princess Diaries blares from the living room, Nick and Maisie snickering about something indistinct. The whole thing still feels like it’s his fault, a bit, certainly more than Ellie’s — Ellie’s a stage actress; she never had paparazzi tailing her down Portland Place unless they were for Harry, really — and it feels strange, complicit to admit it. “She was pretty upset, before. She hadn’t wanted to go.” 

The mugs clink as Ellie transports them to the island, her hair swinging back from her face to reveal furrowed eyebrows, a divot of a frown. “What happened?” 

Haltingly, Harry explains the wardrobe, the tears and then Aimee at the dressing table, painting Maisie’s lips dark and telling her to think about Joan Jett. He tells her a little bit of what Nick had said, about their talk and what had happened next. Slowly, Ellie’s face starts to transform, eyes going wide, shiny. She grips tight to her mug as Harry talks, letting him finish even though he’s sure it’s killing her, as usual, how slowly he’s speaking. 

“So,” Harry finishes, staring resolutely into the milky liquid. “I mean, it’s not great, still. The whole tabloid story shit still bothers her, I think. But it got resolved. Sort of.” 

“I want to give Aimee Phillips a medal,” Ellie says quietly. 

“She’s pretty amazing.” 

“And Nick phoned her?” 

Harry nods. 

Ellie’s forehead arches, eyebrows drawing closer together. She stares devotedly into her cup. “Thank him for me,” she says, quiet. “Tell him that — he’s a wonderful…” Ellie takes a breath, something clearing in her eyes. “Father. He’s a wonderful father.” 

Water fills Harry’s vision and then they’re both sniffling, laughing a little as they wipe their cheeks. “Ridiculous,” Harry says, wry. 

With a snort, Ellie nods. She wraps her fingers around her mug, holds them there for a moment before taking them away, as if it’s too hot. “Listen, Haz. I —” She swallows, looks down. “I’ve been thinking a lot about what we talked about this week. About the whole Glasto thing. I — I mentioned it to Jack, and he, sort of. I’d forgotten, you know. I was so upset about that decision being made without me; I didn’t think about how Nick’s been here the whole time too.” 

Harry’s throat expels some air noiselessly. He puts his hand over Ellie’s.

“I still don’t think she should go this year,” Ellie says, seriously, turning her palm up so her fingers lace through Harry’s. “She’s old enough to get into proper trouble now and of the mind to _want_ to. But… I was wrong, when I —” 

“Said Nick wasn’t her father?” asks Harry, keeping the dryness to as much of a minimum as he can manage. 

“Yes. Yes, I was wrong to say that. I was… Upset, and not thinking. Jack and I only got married a few years ago, it’s not really a fair comparison, is it? Nick used to change Maisie’s nappies. Not counting the part where she was in my uterus, he’s been around her nearly as much as I have, really.” 

There is a part of Harry — not a charitable part — that wants to rub this fact in, or at least go at her a bit with how wrong she had been. He takes a breath, letting the moment pass. “Thank you,” he says, instead. He squeezes her cool hand and lets go.  

*

Ellie stays for dinner. They eat in the conservatory, rain chucking it down outside and Drake’s new album playing from the living room, and then she heads home after kissing everyone goodbye. 

“Pudding?” Roscoe asks, hopefully, after the front door shuts. 

“Mm,” Harry says, pretending to hesitate. Nick smirks at him from the kitchen doorway, over the heads of the kids. 

“ _Please_?” Roscoe turns limpid eyes at him, tugging Maisie’s sleeve. “Maisie, say please.” 

“Please,” Maisie says gamely. “Please, Daddy?” 

“I don’t know,” Harry says slowly. “Gosh. What do you think, Nick?” 

“ _Please_ , Daddy?” Roscoe turns round to face Nick, putting his little hands together like Oliver Twist. 

“Please?” Maisie turns too, facing Nick with her dimples out in full force. “Please, Dad?” 

Nick’s entire face flushes, pink sinking down into his shirt collar. He looks up at Harry, eyes wide. Harry smiles, watery-eyed as usual. _Dad_ , Harry mouths. Nick goes pinker. 

“Well?” Harry asks, a little thickly. “What do you say, Grim?” 

“Yeah, alright,” Nick says, finally, beaming at Roscoe and Maisie with a smile that could light all of North London, possibly. “Monsters. Let’s see what we have.” 

Roscoe whoops and pushes past Nick into the kitchen, rooting through cupboards and tossing things aside in his search for sweets. Harry follows, soon enough to see Maisie hoist Roscoe up so he can wreak havoc on the upper shelves as well. 

“This is going to be a right mess,” Harry says, wrapping his arms around Nick’s torso. 

“Awful,” Nick says, completely unconvincingly. His eyes are all wet, near to spilling. Harry kisses his cheek, and holds him tight. 

Harry’s life is not the sort of thing where he can say _it’s easy._ Maybe he could once, before the parents’ evenings and school runs, the tabloid bollocks and the paps trailing his ex-wife and the perpetual negotiation of joint-parenting, the never-ending chaos in the kitchen. It is, however, the sort of thing where he can say _it’s worth it_. 

It’s worth it. It’s so, unbelievably, incredibly worth it. It’s just about the best thing in the world. 


End file.
